


Day 12: Sideswipe

by GemmaRose



Series: Lost Light Fest 2019 [9]
Category: Transformers (IDW 2019)
Genre: Comfort, Gen, Hugs, Memory Loss, Miscommunication, Reunions, Tenderness, Transformers Spark Bonds, memory sharing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-12
Updated: 2019-10-12
Packaged: 2020-12-13 15:40:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,700
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21000104
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GemmaRose/pseuds/GemmaRose
Summary: After a century apart, their twinbond severed by being in separate universes, Sideswipe isn't going to waste a single klik in reuniting with his brother, no matter what this planet throws at him.





	Day 12: Sideswipe

**Author's Note:**

> This is an IDW2 Sideswipe but I'm still using IDW1 time units because I'm more familiar with them and we have yet to be given smaller units than a day for IDW2

Sideswipe forged through the wirebushes with a grimace, ducking low tree branches as he followed the tug of his spark. After a century of having the bond to his twin forcibly severed, the tug on his spark to reunite with its other half was like a magnetic pull, a compass pointing him unerringly towards his brother’s location. He’d already shot more than one mini who tried to get in his way, and thankfully word seemed to have spread because none had tried to stop him for a fight in the past half a cycle. The more shots he was able to save, the better. He’d still have to defend the both of them after their reunion for, well, probably the rest of their lives. Sunstreaker was many things, but he wasn’t a soldier, wasn’t a fighter the way Sideswipe was.

The forest abruptly gave way to sandy grasses, and bare paces from the treeline the ground sloped down, grass giving way to loose silica sands. Sideswipe scanned the slope for an easy way down that wouldn’t fill his seams with sand, but his optics were quickly pulled from the ground by a tug on his spark. His helm snapped up, and he threw himself down the slope at a run towards the bright yellow frame tearing across the sands towards him. He grabbed their bond and pulled again, urging Sunstreaker to transform into root mode, and when his twin did Sideswipe skidded to a halt.

Sunstreaker’s momentum carried him the final mechanometers, the bond singing with their proximity, and with every step Sideswipe could make out more of what had happened to his brother. His kibble was completely changed, all sharp points and threatening angles, paint scoured from most of it and dust covering the rest. His face and helm were different as well, no longer near-mirrors of his own but sleeker, sharper like the rest of him, his denta pointed when he opened his mouth like he was going to ask a question. His expressions were still the same, his field flickering between confusion and familiarity, and Sideswipe’s spark _ached_.

“What happened to you?” he asked softly, closing the distance between them and taking his brother by the arm. Sunstreaker’s optics focused on him, but aside from that he didn’t react. “Sunny?” he tried, spark spinning faster in his chest. Primus, please, getting his brother back without anything left of what made him _Sunstreaker_ was the cruelest possible answer to his prayers for their reunion. “Sunstreaker, please. Talk to me.” he lifted a hand to Sunstreaker’s cheek, wiping dust from the smooth protometal. Sunstreaker’s optics fluttered shut as he leaned into the touch, frame relaxing, and Sideswipe’s spark casing clenched tight.

“What happened to you?” he asked again, voice small and wavering.

“You came for me, Sides.” Sunstreaker murmured, mouth curving into a fond, familiar smile as his optic shutters slid slowly open, hand lifting to lay warm over Sideswipe’s on his cheek.

“Of course I did.” Sideswipe choked out, unable to stop smiling as Sunstreaker pulsed affection at him through his field and their twin-bound sparks. “I promised, didn’t I?” promised to do whatever it took to be sent through after his twin, when Sunstreaker was chosen to pass through Unicron’s Maw. It had been a hard century, without his twin at his side, but that was in the past now.

Sunstreaker leaned in, and Sideswipe moved to bump his helm against his brother’s. Only for Sunstreaker to tilt his helm and press a kiss to his lips, the unmistakable sound of a modesty panel snapping open loud in the sudden silence. Sideswipe jerked back, optics wide and field flaring wildly, and his spark did a funny sort of twist in his chest as he registered the look of hurt and confusion on his brother’s face. What was going on? What- his optics snapped to a rising cloud of dust on the horizon, and Sideswipe grabbed his brother by the arm again.

“We’re getting out of here.” he said firmly, and Sunstreaker didn’t complain at all as Sideswipe hauled him up the slope into the forest. If nothing else it would slow their pursuers down, let him put some distance between them and who or _what_ever was surely responsible for Sunstreaker’s unexplainable behaviour. Primus, he wished the lack of complaining or resistance could’ve been welcome, but all it did was remind him how wrong things had suddenly turned. The Sunstreaker he knew would be complaining non-stop about messing up his paint forging through wirebushes, would’ve balked at being asked to scale nearly-sheer cliffs to reach the caves in them.

“Are we done running?” Sunstreaker asked when Sideswipe finished pacing the perimeter of the cave, and Sideswipe gave him a sharp look. “Hey, you’re the one who freaked out for no reason.” Sunstreaker crossed his arms, and for a moment Sideswipe was caught off-balance by the sheer _normalcy_ of the moment. It could’ve been a snippet from any one of their many, many arguments over the meta-cycles, back home.

“Yeah.” he said, slumping against the wall. “Yeah, we’re done running.”

“Good.” Sunstreaker leaned back on the ledge he’d seated himself on, spreading his legs to show off a clear modesty panel. Sideswipe looked away, heat rushing to his face.

“Primus, Sunny, I don’t need to see your array.”

“Then why did you drag me all the way up here, if not for some privacy?” Sunstreaker frowned, confusion and annoyance familiar even on his new face. “Bad enough I stripped half my paint off tearing across the desert, now I’m going to need to fix what’s left too.”

Sideswipe couldn’t help it, he laughed. He doubled over clutching his middle, the laughter spilling from his vocaliser rough-edged and humourless. Everything was sideways, and still somehow Sunstreaker was Sunstreaker. “You’re my _brother_, Sunny.” he rasped when the fit passed, taking a few steps to cross the cave and lay hands on his twin’s shoulders. “I wasn’t about to let whoever was coming at us get you and frag up your processor any more.”

“Frag you, my processor is perfectly fine.” Sunstreaker scowled, and Sideswipe pulled his brother into a hug tight enough to dent, not letting go until Sunstreaker relaxed and returned the embrace.

“It’s not.” he said when he pulled away, moving his hands to his brother’s arms again. “But it’s alright, we’re together now, whatever this place has done to your processor I’m sure we can fix it.”

“All Unicron’s done to my processor is corrupt a few old files.” Sunstreaker scoffed. “It happens to everyone.”

Sideswipe’s optics widened. Corrupted files would explain _a lot_. Twinbonds were uncommon, rare even. If Sunstreaker’s memory files of their history had been corrupted, all he would’ve had to go on when Sideswipe approached him was the fact they had a sparkbond, as conjunx might, and any emotions which might’ve been pouring over that bond into him. Relief at their reunion, worry for his wellbeing, the protectiveness Sideswipe had been dwelling on just prior. All driven by the love he felt for his brother.

“It hasn’t happened to me yet.” Sideswipe said, pulling back enough to pop open his hub cover and pull out a cable. “I can’t show you everything, but I can give you back everything we shared.”

Sunstreaker’s optics lit up, and he took the cable to plug it into one of his ports. Their firewalls both dropped automatically, and Sunstreaker’s optics flickered. “That’s new.”

“Our sparks started off as one, I don’t think you could keep me out if you tried.” Sideswipe shrugged, packaging up all his memories tagged with Sunstreaker’s designation and sending them over the cable.

“That’s a lot of files.” Sunstreaker said as Sideswipe moved on to files Sunstreaker had sent him. Those ones were well-worn, accessed over and over for the echo of his twin’s signature during the century he had to keep operating like things were normal and fine while his spark was tearing itself apart searching for the other end of a severed bond.

“We did share a hab.” Sideswipe pointed out, tossing over another compilation of files to give Sunstreaker and overview of what had gone down since his selection in the lottery. The Ascenticons and Rise, the murders, and everything that followed.

“Oh, Primus.” Sunstreaker mumbled, field going cold in horror as his processor integrated the files Sideswipe had sent. Memories of an entire functioning spent joined at the hip, from the moment they left the pyramid to the moment Sunstreaker vanished through Unicron’s Maw, another Champion sent to protect their planet from the threat of the Unmaker’s dark and chaotic energies. “And I was going to ‘face you!”

“Still think I was freaking out for no reason?” Sideswipe asked rhetorically as Sunstreater unplugged the cable and let him take it back.

“No.” he shook his helm. “You did overreact though.”

“To my _brother_ trying to make out with me?”

“To my friends coming after me.” Sunstreaker rolled his optics. “I tore off towards you as soon as you pulled on the bond, couldn’t focus on anything else long enough to tell them not to worry. I spent the whole trek through the forest on the comm with them.”

“So that’s why you were quiet.” Sideswipe huffed, sitting down next to his brother on the ledge. “Well, what now?”

“You could always come home with me.” Sunstreaker smiled, placing his hand over Sideswipe’s. “It’s been a while since we had a new member who wasn’t forged into the tribe.”

“Well, it beats sitting in a cave, I guess.” Sideswipe grinned, but when he made to stand Sunstreaker’s hand kept his pinned to the ledge.

“Could we not go just yet?” his brother asked, and Sideswipe smiled.

“Sure thing, Sunny.” he sat back down, and freed his hand from under Sunstreaker’s to throw his arm around his brother’s shoulders and pull him in. If Sunstreaker wanted to spend a cycle or so just cuddling, like when they’d been fresh out of the pyramid and squished together on one berth to recharge so their once-conjoined sparks wouldn’t get lonely in the night, well Sideswipe sure as frag wasn’t going to deny him.


End file.
